Haven’t played ARMA 3 for too long but I’ve been hearing comments from other people on other groups. So I was wondering what have those experiences been like. What are the main issues with them or what has been great about them? How are the Mil-Sim groups? How are the casual ones? Have the issues of the other groups been dealt with in this one? No need to mention specific names just in broad terms.
i’ve been apart of about 4 milsim groups and 3 of them closed down basically do to drama. The problem with milsim groups is that you often get a split high ranked and the low ranked. Because the high ranked has this "I’m better" status in game the connection between the cogs and the computer is not really there resulting in backtalking and so on…
Then there’s also the problem that a lot of places the leaders can’t get what they want fast enough. This results in new mods and similar being put in the game before taught or tested making a bad experience.
I find that most milsim communities have really really bad leaders who often can’t handle the "officer status" and therefore ends up not listening to the community. But in the end that’s no problem because almost everybody starts in milsim and that means they’ll get recruits either way.
This might sound a little agressive but it’s only my experience with them. I wouldn’t trade the CNTO for a milsim community with a thousand players per op. The amount of work put in from both the top but also others here is astonishing. As you ask whether the issues of other groups has been dealt with in this one I can tell you it has. The voting system for example which Ryujin, Clarke and Abuk uses is a product from the group they all came out of. Makes sure nobody is "sitting on the throne". The slow implementation of mods is a product of earlier mistakes in other units. The streamlining of mission making and others are also.
What Anders said is spot on. One more thing I can add is … actually no he covered it all. Go guard that sector for 2 hours . GL HF. Ive been in 4 milsim ones myself. 1 is still active out of them. Inactivity shut the rest.
I never bothered joining a Milsim because of large amount of total dickheads I’ve met who gave me the impression that Milsim is only meant for pretentious, nationalistic Brits and Americans who were too fat to actually join the army or even play airsoft and think they know all about military tactics solely because they’ve seen Blackhawk Down
Gaius Civilis (Chris): 40 minutes to set up defensive perimeter
Milsim player: should it not?
Gaius Civilis (Chris): No?
Milsim player: i mean its a defensive perimeter not a frat party gangbang tbh
Milsim player: you shouldnt play arma if you dont like it, nothing will change if you keep crying.
I have only ever been at CNTO untill earlier this year when I wanted to see what Milsim was all about and joined a really big group that have 50 to 60 every OP.
Although this one seemed to be run really well by it’s leaders, on most OP’s when I played with them I longed for CNTO’s professionalism on the battlefield and like others have mentioned with such a large group things get clickey especially because the separation of ranks.
Also I like that at CNTO you can play as SL one mission then in the next go AR, in nearly all Milsim groups you are stuck in a position that yes you may bid for and get if your lucky but then that’s you every OP the AT guy or Grendier and the main thing about this was the fact that you never get a chance to lead I only lead once when the guys in charge had died.
Most missions at other communities also use things like Alive or DAC which is understandable and although it is said they will do awesome things all I can say is for me 80% of the time I was either waiting around or just moving from place to place with not much happening it tends to make for either Lazy GM’s or ones that do not take notice of one element sat somewhere for 30mins not doing anything.
Thankfully at CNTO we have great members that if they do wish to join other communities can do but will more than likely see for themselves how good we have it here in comparison. I would even say on our good days we behave and work better together than ShackTac.
Great information guys. Would like to add couple of additional questions that rose from your answers. How has the age of members affected gameplay (CNTO being special in its comperativly high age requirment)? What was the experience in CNTO that created this high age requirment?
How has the different size of the group affected the sense of community and fun level in missions? Small group better or can large groups still have loads of fun?
Do these MIL-SIM groups actually include any EX-MIL or MIL people?
From what Chris said it seems it is mostly just wannabe armchair tacticians. Also they seem to want to simulate most pointless part of the real thing - endless waiting. Do they simulate the writing of full OPORD aswell and do extensive planning?
Does this mimic of military rank system serve a purpose in those groups or is it about "Simulation" or satisfaction of some persons ego?
The age requirement is hard to answer. I know that maturity doesn’t come with age always but it still helps I’d say. At least you don’t get squeakers this way. In the age between 18 and 21 which is were we primarily differ from others it’s hard to say. I think our way works good because we can give those who write a good app a chance but have a reason to not let the uninterested in too.
I think large groups can still have loads of fun but it will probably mean that people binds themselves to small groups which is not that much of a problem if everybody still knows eachtother and can play together. I don’t really know. I think shacktac still has fun?
The milsim groups actually has a lot of veterans and military guys in the units. I don’t know if it’s good or bad. Sometimes they overcomplycate things but again it’s milsim so it’s meant to be overcomplicated.
The rank system shows a purpose of military simulation and then for some helps them boost their ego. It’s also a thing that makes people want to grind more to get the higher rank. Funny enough it’s always the guy who is best friends with the leader who gets the rank 
[quote user_id=“11585258” avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/11585258/avatar/medium.1412003243.jpeg” name=“Chris”]I never bothered joining a Milsim because of large amount of total dickheads I’ve met who gave me the impression that Milsim is only meant for pretentious, nationalistic Brits and Americans who were too fat to actually join the army or even play airsoft and think they know all about military tactics solely because they’ve seen Blackhawk Down
Gaius Civilis (Chris): 40 minutes to set up defensive perimeter
Milsim player: should it not?
Gaius Civilis (Chris): No?
Milsim player: i mean its a defensive perimeter not a frat party gangbang tbh
Milsim player: you shouldnt play arma if you dont like it, nothing will change if you keep crying.[/quote]
"Milsim Player" … I think you mean "ex-CNTO player who joined milsim" but yeah no names here …
I agree we Anders I think it works I would say it just helps keep the community relativity mature and therefore together.
Smaller groups you get to know everyone pretty quick, larger groups sometimes you don’t ever talk to people as your paths just never cross. Both have fun however but people tend to be more invested in smaller communities and members have a lot more say.
[quote user_id=“16558368” avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/16558368/avatar/medium.1471276874.jpeg” name=“zcribe”]Do these MIL-SIM groups actually include any EX-MIL or MIL people?
From what Chris said it seems it is mostly just wannabe armchair tacticians. Also they seem to want to simulate most pointless part of the real thing - endless waiting. Do they simulate the writing of full OPORD aswell and do extensive planning?[/quote]
Well the one I joined had some EX Mill, I was told on joining I was the only Active serving guy in the community. It is ARMA people play to get the experience it is supposed to be a military simulator 
so I tend not to hold it against people who believe they are the best tactician in the world or air softers who know everything ;). There do tend to be more people in Milsim who tend to think they are in the real army and love telling people how to do things. I had a really funny situation in the Milsim I joined actually won’t go into it here though.
I think they do it for out of game administration and they stick to it rigidly in game for organisational reasons. But like I have said they do not relinquish there positions in order to give those who wish to lead a chance and the promotion of people seems to be done by who is my best buddy not all the time on merit.
I’ve been in 2 units before CNTO. The first was an american milsim clan called the 31st MEU.
Now one thing i’ve learned about the american clans is that their bravery belays all sense of self preservation. In one op I became injured and unconcious on a rock whilst under fire from the enemy. Every single one of them wanted to be the one to drag me out of the fight. One after the other they came to get me, one after the other they were shot by the guy who shot me, As more wounded accumulated more and more wanted to come and be a hero and soon there was a comically huge pile of wounded on top of me. I regained conciousness later to find I was pretty much the only one alive. Nobody even thought to drop smoke. I’m guessing they’ve probably installed some casualty reaction discipline by now.
I left not too long after joining because their timeschedual was incompatible with my own and joined a british mil sim unit called the 9th Para.
I had a lot of fun in the para, but the group eventually collapsed because of drama, and essential staff leaving to get lives. We got a lot of drama from some members, we’re lucky in CNTO to not have so much drama and conflicting personalities. I don’t think it’s fair to say that was because our age minimum was considerably lower than average. A lot of the most reliable and chilled out soldiers in our unit were still in school and were quite good to teach. Our youngest was Private Batson, a 14 year old american school boy who sounded like a little girl. He was something of a clan mascot and even got a medal named after him. The Batson Award. An award for being Private Batson. Things went downhill for a while… It got to a point where there was only one or two mission makers and we would patrol helmand province stepping on IEDs and having sporadic fights with militia every day. it was fun for a while but eventually got repetative. The mission maker and owner were both ex military and it was pretty professional. When they left things just got a bit crap. Two of the senior staff fell out, and the leaving staff tried to drive a wedge between the community recruit on the teamspeak and other stuff that isn’t really cricket.
I left when things were about fizzled out, and since I was one of the more regular corporals leading fireteams and often held trainings, I think that was one of the nails in the coffin. It was a sinking ship, Props to those who tried to keep it alive. I didn’t leave just because of that though, I had a lot of shit to sort out, personal stuff I didn’t want to disclose, and didn’t touch arma for about a year.
What I like about CNTO is that there isn’t really any drama, and there’s less potential for drama because nobody has any rank, means each other any ill, and we’re not a rigid disciplined mil-sim. It’s a really nice balance that we should pride ourselves on. Serious organized fun. We’re really good at what we do, and everyone is on the same page. I feel like this unit gets a lot of ex- mil sim members, who prefer this style of gameplay, and I guess that means more general competence across the board. Almost like your first mil-sim group is mid-school and your CNTO career is high-school.
I feel like even if for some reason the executive staff fall out, for example Ryujin starts to go steady Abuk and doesn’t dumps Clarke, there won’t be any dramatic shift, and that they’ll still tolerate each other and not give each other the silent treatment during ops or executive decisions. Their clan is more important. To that effect, they select staff very carefully. I’ve seen a unit tear itself appart so I hope that nothing ever drives a wedge between us.
We want to keep it alive though. People need to step up. CNTO needs you! Trainers, Mission Makers and Promoters. If we don’t the pressure may get to Dachi and his mind will snap like a ritz cracker. Think of the Dachi’s. Become a CNTO Trainer/Mission Maker.
I am so new to CNTO that it is hard for me to make a comparison. But what I can tell is my experience whit mil-sim units. Before I joint CNTO I was a specialist in the 7th Cavalry Gaming mil-sim community as an EOD. The reason I left was because of the time-zone deference and the work you had to put in besides the practice en coop hours.
7th Cav is a huge community spread over several different games and split up in different regiments. The focus was to create a gaming experience that resembled reality as close as possible. Whit this came bureaucracy, (friend) politics, bicker and many hours of hard work or waiting. But also immersive gameplay, feeling of accomplishment, knowledge that could be used in real life. The mil-sim community had pros and cons some of them I listed below:
Pros:
• Immersive gameplay
• Operations on massive scale, so a complete new tactical aspect
• Rewards and personalized avatar screens made you feel you accomplished something
• Knowledge that could be used in real life
• Thigh and organized companies
• Specialization made people good in what they did (pilots, EOD, medics, officers)
Cons:
• !!Bureaucracy!!
• Bicker
• Stuck to one MOS
• Little time for your real life
• Lots of waiting (in and out of game)
• Real friend don’t exist
I have chosen CNTO to try a more relax way of playing. Enjoying the game and having fun. I also wanted to be able to play but also have a life beside it. I hope CNTO will give me many memorable moment in game, also I hope I have found a community which can enjoy playing and can be friends outside of the game.
On a side note I do think it is very important to invest in your community as Price also noticed. You can’t take the good parts and give nothing back. After I get some playing hour’s whit you guys I really would want to go into mission making as my way of giving back.
Never been in an ArmA milsim group but I have been in very regimented CoD and Battlefield groups before. They had the same problems as any group that is the pet project of a one or two guys, they want to play armchair general and are often not very good at it. I think we are lucky we believe in letting everyone have a go once they have become grunts. The most important thing to remember for new squad or FT leaders is "Do it your way!" Your approach can be completely different to the way the rest of us plan an operation. I enjoy a game most of all when a new leader has a new approach to a problem. The training we do is just to allow us to have a framework or a common tactical language to work with.
As for the average age I can definitely say that with great age comes bugger all great wisdom. For example there have been a couple of guys still in school who taught me a lot about tactics and how to fly choppers better…
[user avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/16485458/avatar/small.1465151507.jpeg” name=“Corwin”]16485458[/user] a fellow 7Cav vet eh ? I feel you bro. Was in B/2/D/1-7, SL and TL. Left 2 years ago for reasons.
• Rewards and personalized avatar screens made you feel you accomplished something
We do have Rounds tags and Ribbons for our members as rewards, and when it comes to personalized avatar screen or anything in this matter, you can get the most personalized you can think of, all you have to do is ask your Design and Graphic team on the forums !
See, there’s kind of a void between milsim communities and shacktac.
I hate anything that tries to simulate the real-world military bureaucracy, strict top-down structure and the need for being an egoistic asshole to everybody to make the system work. It is what was established during the world wars to manage ENORMOUS amounts of people of varying intellect and needed to be fool-proof, not efficient or human-friendly, and it stuck.
On the other hand, watching some of shacktac videos, you see that they use AI with very low skill, don’t really take good cover, and seem to have a much more "casual" gameplay than I would probably enjoy. In the sense that the enemy often doesn’t seem like a challenge, maybe it’s because of their no-respawn policy, I don’t know.
So what do I enjoy? Why am I here? The tactics, strategies, immersion, "oh shit" moments, diverse difficulty, story-driven missions, and the potential for variety in gameplay - from regular infantry, through para recon specops, to guerrilla forces.
For me, it’s not just "serious fun", it’s more of a "serious challenging fun", though I imagine some people don’t share this viewpoint.
So why not milsim? Because I hate respect gained through fear and I love respect gained through actions/merit.
Counts me out of being respectable then. My survivability has gone up since Chris came back, though…
I have yet to climb any ladders so that isn’t true (yet)
Price says there little to no drama here and long may it remain. I like to think I am very dramatic thank you very much! :X
Corwin wants to have a life outside of gaming and be friends with members outside of the game. I couldn’t care less if you have a life outside of game or any friends. I am not friends with anyone in here in or out of game. I just tolerate everyone as I couldn’t play the game like this on my own. :roll:
Teddy. I have great wisdom that has come with age, but my Intelligence is -2. :thumb:
As I hope you can tell, I talk complete and utter BS and should never be taken seriously. :-d
The guys are right in saying that our admin group puts the community first and in general, there has been little poltical bickering here.
I like the fact that we are not split into a them and us community of officers and soldiers. We are all here for the same reason, to play in a tactically immersive way and have, as Freghar said, a serious challenging fun time. We can all take different roles in different events to keep things varied and we all have a laugh together.
On Friday I think I went a little overboard with the fun at times (even I was impressed by my level of BS!) which always happens at times. Maybe I have been SL so much recently that I took full advantage of my time as an FTL!
In seriousness, I like to think I am a mature player who you can have a laugh with. Treat others the way you want to be treated is the way. If you do that (which I believe we all do) we will continue to have a community that we all want to be a part of. A tactical community without all the ‘yes sir’, ‘no sir’ BS!
There is a definite culture of good-natured piss taking in the group (I like to think I take the piss out of myself at least as much as I do others) but one of the big pluses of this community is that I feel I can approach people privately about issues and get a mature response.
Well I don’t mind these as long as they’re used in jest, or when a GM is roleplaying a lost US soldier from another platoon, etc. Basically when it’s not taken seriously.
(But I know some people are allergic to it.)